UK - Travel Problems

Ascot - All's Well That Ends Well!

First of all, I have to say that my EasyJet flight (I will name and shame!) was horrendously expensive – I was shocked to find myself paying 600 GBP for my return flight. Of course, I am usually flying to Zurich and not the UK, but when I had my interview (when the company was paying), the return flight was only something like 250 CHF on Swiss (that doesn’t seem possible, but whatever it was, it was very cheap). It’s just typical that when someone else is paying you get the cheapest flight ever, and when you’re paying, it’s the most expensive you’ve ever seen it. It’s particularly offensive because it’s EasyJet – the “cheap” airline with no drinks, no food, no reclining chairs, no entertainment, for the 5 hour journey.

Well, rant over, it was as it was. I calmed myself down by deciding to visit as many people as I could in the time. If I then divided the price per friend seen, it didn’t seem nearly as bad.

It pretty much started as it went on, with the theme of the visit, in retrospect, turning out to be travel problems. I shared a taxi to Hurghada airport with Jeff and Ness, so that was a good thing (maybe emphasizing the other theme, which was friendship). On arrival, we were immediately greeted by an airport employee who said he could get us to skip the queue. This has happened to me twice before – the first time I had my broken foot and I thought it was a service for the disabled; the second time I batted him away as I was sure it was a con of some kind. Anyway, Jeff went with it, and to my surprise, it was true. The guy pushed us to the front of a huge queue all for the price of a tip at our discretion. It was really worth it (no different from paying EasyJet extra for Speedy Boarding, I guess).

We entered the airport to drop our bags (you have to do your own check-in with EasyJet) only to find that the plane was leaving an hour earlier than expected! I think it’s something to do with EasyJet having the wrong times due to Egypt deciding at the last minute not to change the clocks for the summer. Anyway, we’d obediently arrived three hours early as requested, so it was fine, but in an alternative universe…

I was met easily at the airport by Geraldine and the Horsham part of my stay started off fairly smoothly. We ate too much, but other than that….

I then went off to visit my friend Julie in Bristol. I was a bit stressed about it because for my train journey I had to change at Dorking and I was to arrive in one Dorking station and to walk to the other station in Dorking to get my connection. I have no idea why they think it’s a good idea to have two stations. The connection time was quite tight, too. Anyway, I got to Horsham station and my first train was cancelled! There was a replacement bus service, but my hopes weren’t high of this arriving in Dorking in time, although the person at Horsham station reassured me that if I missed my connection, they were bound to get me to my destination somehow and the missed connection wouldn’t be my fault. However, surprisingly I did make the connection, even though the signs to the station that I was promised would be very clear did not appear to be evident at the station itself, but I’d fortunately spotted one of the signs from the bus.

So, despite the odds, I did get to Julie’s on time. I think I overdid on eating chips while I was there – I’d been craving them and then went overboard, so after that I couldn’t really face them again.

Then it was back to Geraldine’s. I thought this was going to be the easier journey, but I failed miserably. My first train from Bristol was delayed. The short story is that I missed my connection. The true story is that I could have probably made my connection if I’d realized I was in Reading station and not Redhill (or was it the other way round?). Anyway, I was supposed to go from Reading to Redhill (or vice versa?), but got it the wrong way round, so I was trying to find a platform at Reading station that had a train going to Reading. Of course, I couldn’t find this. When I finally asked, the guy asked me twice where I was going to and I thought he was a bit of an idiot until he explained to me that I was already at Reading! I generally find that if I think people are being a bit of an idiot, it’s actually me.

So, I missed my connection, but then when I got to my next station, the next train I needed was cancelled. I didn’t have a mobile phone with me, so I couldn’t let Geraldine know not to collect me, which was another source of stress. I took another route and went straight to Gatwick Airport (close to Horsham), but the next two trains to Horsham were also cancelled. High praises to the woman at British Rail (she was maybe Italian?) who was cornered by about 15 angry passengers (“it’s always the Horsham trains that are canceled! Why?!” “I’ve been working 11 hours and it’s taking me 3 hours to get home”, “What is it with Horsham?”) and seemed genuinely sympathetic and unbelieving when a train that normally goes to Horsham was re-routed to skip Horsham (at this point she looked as if she wanted to hand in her notice then and there!).

Anyway, it was a long journey. I arrived after midnight and the very next morning I had to take a train to get to Pam’s. As far as I can recall, that went smoothly, apart from me mistakenly enthusiastically greeting a stranger thinking it was Pam when it wasn’t. I felt a right plonker, but it had been a while since I’d last seen Pam and I thought maybe she’d changed. When I finally saw Pam (easily identifiable!), I couldn’t work out what possessed me to think the other woman could have been her.

A lot more eating was done among the four of us who were there, including a meal at Ascot’s finest restaurant followed up by a Chinese take-away when we got back, and then a full English breakfast the next morning…

By the time I was due to get back to Geraldine’s, Southern Rail had officially gone on strike. If train services were bad before the strike, I didn’t like to think what it would be like when the strike was actually in progress. In the end, in order to return, Pam had to drive me to Guildford, and then Geraldine picked me up from Guildford. After a day to recuperate, it was time to fly back to Egypt; again Geraldine needed to drive me to the airport due to the rail strike. Good old Great Britain!

My return to Egypt just rounded it all off nicely. It appeared that the EasyJet site had not given the correct time of arrival, or the airport site didn’t have the right time or something. I’d asked Esmat to pick me up at 4.45pm, but, unknown to me, he’d checked the time of the flight online and it said one hour later, so he assumed my flight had been delayed and didn’t leave to collect me for another hour. Some passengers on the plane were also betting between themselves about the correct arrival time. So, I arrived at the airport and there was no Esmat to pick me up.

Of course, I’d completely forgotten to “pack” my mobile phone. I’d remembered the charger, but not the actual phone. So, I couldn’t phone to find out what was happening. I hadn’t considered that maybe Esmat had seen the wrong time online. After waiting for half an hour, I ended up having to take another taxi, who was wanting to charge me 50% more than I usually pay. For once, I felt I knew what I was doing, so I explained what I always paid and said that if he didn’t want to accept that fare, he should just take me back to the airport and I’d get another taxi. He didn’t, but did continue to complain the whole journey. I felt surprisingly calm. I’d explained my view very clearly, I’d given him the option to refuse it, so it was his fault now if he didn’t like it.

I got back to my flat, my balcony hadn’t been cleaned as requested, my wall hadn’t been repaired as requested. It was literally like I’d never been away! But it was at least most definitely Egypt!

PS. A huge thanks to my friends for providing me with food and accommodation and for just being them! Despite the travel problems, I had a great time, and it was all more than worth it.